Grandma Hansen

On September 6th, my Grandma Hansen died peacefully asleep in her chair at home.  She was 88 years old.  This first picture was the last few minutes I ever spent with her.  At Jenae's wedding lunch I walked her out to her car.  It took almost 20 minutes, but I had watched Allison hold Grandpa's hand for that long in the temple waiting room and I knew I wanted to do something like that for a grandparent that day.  So I offered to help her walk out to the car and she was so calm, stopping to listen to Jenae sing with her mission companions, and stopping to take a picture with Jenae and Connor.  I tried to talk to her but she was mostly focused on the task at hand.  I was able to tell her I loved her though, and just be with her.  It was a fitting goodbye.

Of course I was sad when I heard the news, but I was mostly just relieved for her to be finished!  The last couple (or 5) years had been really hard for her and all her family.  For almost 2 years I had been praying for her to finish her mission on earth, teach others what they needed to know, so she could go home!  So all of our prayers were answered that day.  She was reunited with her parents, who died almost 50 years ago!  And with her 4 siblings who had already passed on, and many other friends and relatives.  What a joyful reunion!  How wonderful for her to be free from her frail body and foggy mind, to remember everything and be at peace! 

They next week I drove with my 3 youngest kids and Jonathan to CA for the funeral.  Whitney had 2 soccer games that weekend, and Katelyn was nervous to miss school since it's harder in Junior High, so Eric stayed home with them.  I was a little sad to not all be going, but I understood.

It was fun to hang out with my brothers, I was the only girl who could come!  Owen had a blast playing with his uncles.

The kids adored Adelaide- it was our first time seeing Derek and Raycelan's little sweetie!

The funeral was beautiful.  My brothers and I and a few cousins sang, all the talks by my dad and his siblings were inspiring, and we all cried as we sang her favorite song at the end, "I Wonder When He Comes Again".

Owen got to hang out with my cousin Matthew, Von and Amy's youngest.

selfie with the bros

I got this gem of an address from my dad's cousin:

And we stopped by Grandpa's house after the funeral for the kids to see it since they didn't remember much.

The next day we got to go roll raisins at the Vineyard, it was awesome!!

Owen got pretty good at it, but it was pretty hot, and at one point he was like "what the heck? Why is water dripping on my hand?" Well it was sweat dripping off his face onto his hand haha!  It was so awesome, me and my mom were like "wow Owen, that means you are working really hard!!"

mmmm grapes!!

Afterwards me and Owen scavenged these leftovers to take home to Eric!  So exciting!

And we had a safe drive home, I somehow survived driving to CA by myself twice in one year!!!  Well Jonathan was with me but he didn't drive at all.  Anyway here's Maris in a cute rest stop bathroom she liked haha.